How do you pay for holidays to America?

[MummyCool19]

We really want to go America soon. Looking more for Florida area I think. But my god how do you pay £5k for a holiday 😩. On paper we can afford it, we have a good disposable income but my god we can not save 😂😩. Plus how much spending money do you take?

Op what are the things you want to do in Orlando? Universal studios? If you aren't doing Disney or universal there's not a huge point in going to Orlando you may as well go elsewhere in USA.

Please don't go to SeaWorld - it's so cruel . Rest of it beautiful and well worth the saving.

we did it for about £6.5k last year - flights and villa were £2.3k, tickets and care hire another £2k, and the rest was spending money. we've booked again for next year, this time, flights and villa are £2.5k, tickets are £1.6k and care hire will be about £400-500 (depending on which car we decide to book), and we'll have a similar amount of spending money.

this is for a family of 4 for 14 days, but we just do disney, as the kids aren't into big rides, so wouldn't be interested in universal. we could have done cheaper by getting a bigger villa with friends who are coming with us, but we wanted our own family base in case we decide we've had enough of each other ;)

we put money into savings each month as soon as we get paid, and also top up with any additional we get paid, and put away anything we have left at the end of the month.

I think the question here is specifically "How do you pay for holidays to Disneyland Florida?", not "How do you pay for holidays to America?"
DH and I go to America or Canada every 2 years for 2 weeks. Admittedly there's only 2 of us, but we spend maybe £1500 max. We use skyscanner to get a good deal on tickets - last month we flew BA Heathrow to San Fransisco for £270 each return. We rent an AirBnB apartment so that we don't have to eat every meal out. We rent a car, but again, shop around for a good deal. We go to a few paid attractions - this year one of our highlights was Monterey Bay Aquarium which cost about $100 for the two of us - but a lot of what we do is free or very inexpensive. We often camp for a few days, we do lots of hiking and walking, canoeing, etc.
It's not hard to have an inexpensive foreign holiday, but it depends what you want to do once you're there. If you want to do lots of expensive things, you end up spending lots of money. If you want to be frugal, it's not that hard.

We had an amazing holiday in Florida. Driving along the Keys, mangroves, Universal was incredible for two Harry Potter-obsessed children, we saw a rocket launch at the Space Center. We really liked Epcot, and the water parks were on a different scale to what we've experienced elsewhere. I haven't been to DLP but I find it difficult to imagine it would come close for our family.

Yes, it did leave us wanting to go back and explore other parts of the USA. But we still thought it was a great place to holiday.

10k is more than our mortgage over a year. Saving £100 a week is complete pie in the sky for me. We feel pleased if we save £100/month!! Luckily i dont esp want to go to florida!!

Budget hotels / motels / hostels / airbnb, hiring cars rather than using taxis or internal flights. Cooking myself rather than eating out - that’s probably the biggest expense

We’re going to Florida next Easter. 2 adults, 1 child. 14 nights, direct flights, accommodation on international drive, tickets to Disney and universal. It’s cost us £5k. We have to pay it off by Christmas. We back with nationwide and they’re app has a function to set up ‘goals’. So our saving account has a goal of £5k by December. It tells you how much you have to save per day/week/month to reach the goal and we transfer the money accordingly.

For six adults (5 actual adults and a 12 year old -adults being everyone over 9 years old!) I paid:

Virgin Holidays 9 nights end of August but within UK school holidays: £5400 for flights, large people carrier car hire, all inclusive car insurance, 4 bed superior villa. (This went up by about 2.5k in various searches, I caught it at the right time.)

Tickets, 2-day Disney Park hoppers with additional 2 days water parks, 2-day Universal passes with free days, Kennedy Space Center with lunch with an astronaut, Clearwater Aquarium, Clearwater boat trip, Disney water park Polar Patio 6 person day hire: £3200 (could have been so much cheaper if they hadn't all wanted to do different things!)

Food and drink eating out for all meals: £2500
Airport taxi: £220

Total for 6 people: £11,400 and nobody warned me about the rain in August! The benefit of going at the end of the summer holidays is that we did not find the parks packed and there was no need to get anything like a Universal Express pass as we did not wait long for anything.

2 adults from the same party going back in September when the schools go back, 2 weeks, Disney hotel, 4 day Disney passes included: £2800 plus food, drink etc.

On this basis I reckon that all in you need £2000 for every person who is going.

14 days Disney passes in September, that should have said.

@Delatron of course it would cost more for 2 extra people, but double is still only £6k and with smaller children it costs less to up the room to a 4 bed. We only spent $200 on food when there as the dining plan fed us 3 meals per day + 2 drinks ( one alcoholic) and a refillable cup + 3 snacks per day which can be used for drinks in parks. So we only had to pay tips.

Transport was free as we stayed on site, as were transfers. So it wasn't very expensive to be there tbh. We went shopping one day so spent a bit there but we didn't have to do that and wouldn't have with kids.

We went in 2016 and it cost about 15k

This year we reckon it will be the 20k mark

It will be last one we take a bunch of freeloading kids on ...its costting a fortune!!

But we save and dh is lucky to get a small bonus each year so he puts that towards it as well

(Only joking about the freeloading...but next time we go it will be when they all have jobs and can contribute a bit more, probably when they have families of their own)

Oops

5 of us, though this year the boyfriend of one of the children is coming and we have helped with food costs there

And its 3 weeks

Ignoring all the silliness in some previous posts, the best piece of advice I can give you is to start checking the prices of flights as soon as they come out (11 months or so before the date you want to go). Set up a Skyscanner alert but check yourself too, at random times but regularly and often. Be prepared to book immediately you spot a good price.
For example- we are going to Florida in late August. I started monitoring the prices in November ( I was a bit slow this time) last year. The prices were ranging from 650 ish basic economy ( so you had to pay extra for luggage etc) to 850ish for the same, over a period of 6 weeks or so. I know from previous experience that December is usually the cheapest time to book and I was getting concerned as the prices were so high. But one night I happened to be online at 1 am and locked in a price of 764 per adult- basic economy plus the extras one way, premium economy on the way back. So 3056 total.

Then accommodation- I looked on HomeAway at the same time and booked a four bedroom villa, with pool, for around £1500. I only had to pay a percentage of this, the main bulk is payable in June, so you can get extra time to pay that sort of thing off, if you need to.

Early booking and persistent checking of prices is key.

Hmm spending money yes. But you need spending money when you're at home too! Yes you might eat out more and go on trips but living at home for 2 weeks is not free either...,

We paid £6 for one week with just universal tickets (no interest in Disney). And that was with a Virgin flying club discount and flying in May half term, that's the cheapest time.

We used my bonus and the rest is saving hard. It also means very low key holidays for the following 2 years.

I have a standing order to put money away straight after pay date and then again I check just before the next one how much money is left on the account and move a further amount if available.

Oh, and that was just 3 of us but DD will be 12 so counts more. And we are also needing spending money and the fact that the resort is room only means money for food.

If you can afford £250 a month to go in savings open a flexible save account paying 5% interest in a year you’ll have a chunk towards a hol with a bit of interest too. Open another the following year then have your hol